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Page 233
She had been too tired to lie awake, lustful and unsatisfied, and she would be too tired again tonight after the wild ride she expected. Ian's rangy, wire-hard body desperately needed exercise even more than it needed a woman. Alinor guessed that was more than half his trouble, but he was tied by the leg. He would be wild by Sunday. So much the better. She noted that there had been no talk last night of his heart. All his attention was centered elsewhere.
By Friday dinnertime, after still another day of idling, Ian was not fit to speak with, as Alinor had expected. The lesser men took to avoiding him; the greater picked their words with care and confined themselves to political subjects that did not raise controversy. At table, Ian had given his attention largely to Lord Llewelyn's wife Joan, exercising such charm that Alinor saw there was more reason than his beautiful face why no woman ever denied him. She was not even mildly pricked with jealousy. Joan was sufficiently attractive, but she was no match for Alinor, who burned like a flame that dinnertime and evening in shades of crimson, silver embroidered and set with brilliants. Moreover, the light in Ian's dark eyes matched Alinor's dress on the occasions when he turned them on her.
Had Ian been Simon, Alinor herself would have suggested easing his tension by a premarital mating. There was nothing in Ian, however, to suggest Simon's ability to assess such a thing calmly. Something told Alinor that for all his discomfort and bad temper, Ian prized her resistance above any proof of tenderness that yielding would give. Perhaps it was because most women were so easy to him; he was the one who suggested that they were married already in faith, while Alinor espoused the Church-held view that the deed must exist. Yet to Alinor it did not matter, and she was sure that to Ian it did. He would equate yielding to him now with the possibility that she would yield to some other man for some equally specious reason in the future.

 
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